2006

Blue Planet Prize

Dr. Akira Miyawaki (Japan) Dr. Emil Salim (Indonesia)

Director, Japanese Center for International Professor, Faculty of Economics and Post
Studies in Ecology (JISE) Graduate Course, University of Indonesia
Emeritus Professor, Yokohama National Former Minister of Population and
University Environment, Republic of Indonesia.

Eternity:
Some time in our past, we
humans stopped listening to what
the forest tells us and no longer
paid heed to the wisdom of
nature. We forgot that life is lim-
ited, and that the might of each
individual is also limited. The
2006 opening film told the stories
of the wisdom of nature and the
forests which were the cradle of
living creatures in their pursuit of
eternity. 247
 Their Imperial Highnesses
Prince and Princess Akishino
at the Awards Ceremony

His Imperial Highness Prince Akishino congratulates the laureates

The prizewinners receive their trophies from Chairman Seya

Hiromichi Seya, chairman

of the Foundation delivers
the opening address

Dr. Akira Miyawaki Dr. Emil Salim

The prizewinners Dr. Akira

Miyawaki (right) and Dr. Emil
Salim (left) at the
Congratulatory Party

Dr. Saburo Nagakura, President of the

Japan Academy and Jusuf Anwar,
Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia,
to Japan, congratulate the laureates
The prizewinners meet the press

248
Profile

Dr. Akira Miyawaki

Director, Japanese Center for International Studies in Ecology (JISE)
Emeritus Professor, Yokohama National University

Education and Academic and Professional Activities

1928 Born on January 29, in Okayama, Japan
1952 Graduated from the Department of Biology, Hiroshima University
1958-1960 Visiting Researcher, Federal Institute for Vegetation Mapping, West Germany
1961 Doctor of Science, Hiroshima University
1961-1962 Lecturer, Yokohama National University
1962-1973 Associate Professor, Yokohama National University
1970 Mainichi Publication Cultural Prize for "Plants and Human"
1973-1993 Professor, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Yokohama
National University
1985-1993 Director, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Yokohama
National University
1990 Asahi Shimbun Prize
1990 Goldene Blume von Rheydt Prize, Germany
1992 Purple Ribbon Medal, Japanese Government
1993-present Professor Emeritus, Yokohama National University
1993-present Director, Japanese Center for International Studies in Ecology
1995 Reinhold Txen Prize, Germany
1996 Nikkei Global Environmental Technology Awards
2000 Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, Japanese Government
2002 Japan Culture Life Award
2003 Distinguished Service Award, Ecological Society of Japan

Dr. Miyawaki specialized in weed ecology for his graduation thesis at Hiroshima University.
After graduating, he conducted field research in locations throughout Japan and wrote several
paperes on weed ecology. His paper drew the attention of Professor Reinhold Txen (1899 -
1980), then-director of the Federal Institute for Vegetation Mapping in Germany. At Professor
Txen' s request, Dr. Miyawaki studied in Germany under his tutelage from 1958.
Dr. Miyawaki studied the concept of potential natural vegetation which is the natural
vegetation supported by the existing conditions of the location in the absence of any human
intervention under Professor Txen and returned to Japan in the fall of 1960. He then con-
ducted research into the natural vegetation remaining in the forests indigenous to the region

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around shrines and temples called "Chinju-no-mori," as well as the vegetation of more than
10,000 locations throughout Japan affected by various types of human activity, including
mountains, riverfronts, agricultural and mountain villages, and metropolitan areas, from which
he created maps of existing and potential natural vegetation.
Further, beginning in 1980, Dr. Miyawaki spent more than 10 years to research vegeta-
tion throughout Japan and author, edit, and publish the 10 volumes comprising "Vegetation of
Japan," with the cooperation of plant ecology laboratories at universities across the country.
Through his research, Dr. Miyawaki demonstrated that the primary indigenous species in the
evergreen broadleaf forest region of Japan are indeed the evergreen broadleaved plants, like the
chinquapin, Machilus tunbergii, and oak, like those found in the forests around shrines and
temples. Plants like the Japanese cedar, cypress, larch, and pine, found in limited locales in
extreme environments like ridges and steep slopes were not native to the habitat, but were
planted for the purpose of producing lumber.
The more research he conducted, he learned that the plants he used to believe were
native to the area were far from the unadorned face of the forest the potential natural vege-
tation indigenous to the location and felt increasingly astonished at his findings. This aston-
ishment served as a turning point. Dr. Miyawaki saw forests as much more than merely pro-
viding an appearance of greenery. Instead, he began to believe in generating forests faithful to
the natural habitat, as our ancestors had created and left behind, and as symbolized by the tra-
ditional "Chinju-no-mori." Believing these forests should be recreated based on field investi-
gations into vegetation ecology, Dr. Miyawaki presented a plan to recreate native, indigenous
forests, the equivalent of environmental protection, disaster prevention, and water source pro-
tection forests in modern terms.
In the early 1970s, forest creation began at the Oita Steelworks of Nippon Steel
Corporation. A research was conducted at the nearby forests at Usa Shrine and the Yusuhara
Shrine to identify potential natural vegetation. After determining which species of trees should
be planted and undergoing trials and errors, it was decided potted plants should be created and
utilized. They were planted mixed and densely in accordance with the system of an indigenous
forest. Large forests have been created at the steelworks in the 18 years since the trees were
first planted, thus making possible the formation of a native forest using native trees. In the
years following, Dr. Miyawaki succeeded in restoring communities of disaster prevention and
environmental prevention forests in 1,300 locations. The success can be attributed to the sup-
port of corporations, as well as municipal organizations, and government ministries, with the
Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport at the forefront, those organizations with fore-
sight and action.
Beginning in 1978, Dr. Miyawaki conducted vegetation surveys in Thailand, Indonesia,
and Malaysia. He proposed that it was possible to restore tropical rainforests by conducting
forestation using an ecological method based on surveys of the local vegetation, while con-
ventional thinking assumed that once a tropical rainforest was destroyed from felling and
intentional burns, restoring the vegetation was nearly impossible. From 1990, Dr. Miyawaki
dedicated himself to the restoration of tropical rainforests in Bintulu, Sarawak, in Malaysia. By
2005, the seedlings planted in 1991 had grown to more than 20 meters tall, and a diverse trop-

250
ical rainforest, mimicking the natural version as closely as possible, has been restored in the
region.
According to a theory known to as the classical succession theory, it would take more
than 150 to 200 years for an indigenous forest to restore itself on barren land in Japan, and
between 300 and 500 years for a tropical rainforest. However, Dr. Miyawaki proved that it was
ecologically possible to restore disaster prevention and environmental protection forests that
closely resemble indigenous forests in 20 to 30 years by densely mix planting various trees
based on potential natural vegetation.
Dr. Miyawaki has presented multi-faceted research results numerous times in various
international symposiums. His work has been internationally acclaimed for approaching
forests not through the conventional method of commercial forestation, but with the end of
restoring forest ecosystems indigenous to the habitat based on potential natural vegetation and
for having achieved demonstrative results which proved his concept.
More than 30 years ago, Dr. Miyawaki felt threatened by various environmental prob-
lems including the destruction of the environment on a global scale and biodiversity. He rec-
ognized the importance of indigenous forests as a basis for human survival, and developed
what is known as the "Miyawaki Method" to restore and reconstruct forests indigenous to the
habitat based on rigorous field investigations of the local vegetation and ecological theories.
Based on his method, Dr. Miyawaki has achieved demonstrable results in experiments and in
the field, inside Japan and abroad.

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Essay

A Call to Plant Trees

Dr. Akira Miyawaki

The Rise and Fall of the Forest and Human Civilization

Today, we live in an era marked by the greatest scientific and technological advances ever seen
in the 6,000-year history of human civilization. Differences remain between the North and the
South. Nonetheless, every industry has progressed, and we enjoy more material wealth than
our ancestors could have ever imagined. To satisfy mounting desires, however, we fell forests
and mountains, overwhelm oceans and rivers with landfill, create new industrial sites, and
scramble to build more cities.
Before long, more and more greenery began disappearing from our environment. In par-
ticular, the native forests by native trees, the indigenous forests with 30 times the greenery
in surface area of single-layered lawns, are disappearing without a trace. Living greenery is the
only producer in the ecosystem, and is fundamental to the existence of all life forms on Earth
including humankind. With the destruction of nature and the spread of environmental conta-
mination, however, peoplefrom scientists, corporations, and politicians to housewives and
childrenhave finally begun to contemplate the gravity of environmental problems.
Environmental problems are occurring not only within large-scale natural development
and the realm of physics and chemistry, but also within new industries that contend with life
forms, such as agroforestry. They also accompany urbanization and the development of trans-
portation infrastructure.
Environmental problems encompass an extremely wide range of issues. Some, like
typhoons, earthquakes, fires, floods, and tsunami, seem like natures retribution, triggered by
her fury. Other problems include the environmental destruction wrought by natural develop-
ment, water and atmospheric pollution caused by factory emissions of chemical substances,
and global warming caused by increased carbon dioxide emissions. Various measures are
being put into place to contend with each of the problems, incorporating the latest science and
technology; nevertheless, these solutions are implemented on a case-by-case basis. Although
conferences do take place to deal with such issues, as environmental problems range so widely,
the essence of environmental concerns gets lost in political and other agendas.
To protect the environment is to protect life. Human beings today behave as though they
own the universe. The fact is they only appeared in the last interlude of the history of life on
earth spanning some three billion years. Human beings have barely achieved a life span of less
than 100 years. Primitive forms of life were created on Earth three billion years ago. Since
then, our DNA, the thin thread of our genes, has somehow continued until the present in an
unbroken chain, bringing us to our existence today.
What is it that those of us who live today can leave for the future? It cannot merely be
material luxuries or money. What we can pass down is the thin but irreplaceable thread of our

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genes, the genes that have been passed down from three billion years ago until the present day.
These are the genes that belong to you, your loved ones, and your neighbors, which is the one
thing we can carry into the future. We live today as milestones for the future.
The most fundamental factor in protecting those genes is living greenery. In particular,
the native forest by native trees, the concentration of three-dimensional native greenery, is
the basis that guarantees the passage of our life, intelligence, sensibility, and, most impor-
tantly, our genes into the future. In reality, however, much of the three largest rain forests, long
regarded as natural forests, have also been felled and devastated. Forests in most areas where
people have built civilizations, beginning in ancient times, from the Mediterranean to India to
China, have been completely destroyed from practices such as the overgrazing of livestock.
Environmental destruction has also advanced in North and South America, as well as in
Australia, known as the new world. Indigenous forests are without a doubt vanishing on a
global scale.

Global Warming and the Forest

There have been voluminous research and assessment across the world into global warming
caused by increased carbon dioxide emissions, with projections made into the future.
Fossil fuels, like petroleum, coal, and natural gas, contain carbon, the principal culprit
for global warming. Fossil fuels were produced as a result of the underground carbonization
of organisms, largely plants, from approximately 300 million years ago. Life forms were in the
midst of evolution. There were no broad-leaved plants like there are today; plants had only
evolved to ferns. In a climate likely to have been favorable with high temperatures and humid-
ity, however, tree ferns grew dense, forming large forests. Through photosynthesis, these
forests absorbed the carbon in the atmosphere and solidified. Subsequently, shifts in the cli-
mate and in the Earths crust buried them underground. Underwater mechanisms have yet to
be fully elucidated, but conventional thinking states that until recently the balance of material
circulation on Earth had been maintained in the space between the atmosphere, the geosphere,
including the hydrosphere, and the biosphere, the thin layer on Earth where all life forms exist.
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century, the develop-
ment of new industries like heavy manufacturing, fossil fuels that had been buried and locked
underground were drawn above ground and burned. Burning fossil fuels creates a chemical
reaction whereby the carbon combines with the oxygen in the atmosphere, producing carbon
dioxide. The amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide became unquestionably greater the more
fossil fuels people burned, which advanced global warming.
Energy conservation has been advocated as a countermeasure to global warming.
People around the world are raising their voices to advocate specific measures like curbing
manufacturing or excess consumption, decreasing electricity consumption, and driving as lit-
tle as possible. Such vital measures have been put into place throughout the world; unfortu-
nately, however, no matter how much they conserve, people of today will be unable to com-
pletely stop using electricity or eliminate the use of machines, cars, and air conditioners. Even
if countries fully exert their efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions as determined at the
Kyoto Conference, as long as they continue to maintain their current economies, industries,

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and urban lifestyles, energy conservation measures will remain insufficient. Further, there is an
end to the availability of fossil fuels, which can be said is the current basis for modern civi-
lization. Estimates project fossil fuel reserves to run out in several decades; no matter how
much people conserve, the reserves will not last another 100 years. In addition to hydraulic and
nuclear power, and the use of natural sources of power such as solar energy, research in
nuclear fission, has been advanced and its results are highly anticipated. However, these
sources of power are still insufficient for immediate use. So what options are available?
The alternative I will describe may seem unspectacular and rather unrefined at first, and
some may think it will not have an immediate effect. Having said that, I believe that creating
indigenous and real forests, and covering as much of the land as possible with forests, is the
most certain and effective measure to reduce carbon dioxide. Real forests form multilayered
communities, of tall trees, semi-tall trees, short trees, and bottom weeds. Thus, they have 30
times the surface area of greenery for photosynthesis compared to such single-layered com-
munities as moors and lawns. As such, real forests should also have 30 times the ability to pre-
serve the local environment and to mitigate impact, in terms of noise insulation, dust filtration,
air purification, and maintaining water quality. Moreover, the primary trees of real forests have
deep and axial roots, making them more resistant to falling, and contributing towards disaster
prevention.
Plants absorb the carbon in the atmosphere through photosynthesis, turning into hydro-
carbon and lignin and forming trunks, branches, and leaves. By following such methods to cre-
ate a forestin which small potted seedlings of the primary trees of the areas potential nat-
ural vegetation are plantedincreasing amounts of carbon are absorbed and solidified as the
seedling grows into a mature tree. For example, if a seedling with a dry weight of 300500
grams grows into a tree, 1020 meters in height or even taller, with a dry weight of one ton,
then 50 percent, or at least 40 percent of its weight is carbon. This suggests that the tree
absorbed and solidified that much carbon from the air. Further, the semi-tall trees, short trees
and the bottom weeds would also grow as the forest develops, increasing the amount of car-
bon that is absorbed.
Theorists ridicule such efforts. They say that for a small number of people to plant trees
for carbon dioxide reduction represents only a drop in the bucket. But in 30 years, we have cre-
ated forests alongside residential communities in more than 1,300 locations in Japan, with the
number rising to 1,500 when we include overseas locations like Borneo, the Amazon, China,
and Inner Mongoliaplanting more than 30 million seedlings. Environmentalist Wangari
Maathai of Kenya, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, has also planted 30 million trees.
When I first met Ms. Maathai, I promised her I would cooperate with her in creating
real, indigenous forests in Kenya. After conducting two rounds of field surveys of the local
vegetation, we had our first tree-planting ceremony in November 2006 and planted seedlings
of indigenous primary trees, with the support of organizations like Mitsubishi Corporation. At
the time, Ms. Maathai spoke about her proposal to the United Nations to plant one billion trees
around the world in 2007. It may not have an enormous impact for one or two people to plant
trees, but what would happen if people around the world planted 10 trees wherever they could?
What would happen if they planted another 30 trees?

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 People often ask if we would run out of places to live if we continued to plant so many
trees. But that concern is unwarranted. For example, 98% of the 120 million people in Japan
live in the evergreen broadleaf region of the country, which stays green throughout the winter.
That landmass is the equivalent to the area from the shoreline to 800 meters above sea level
west of the Kanto region. Many say that Japan has an abundance of greenery. Our recent
research, however, shows that only 0.06% of indigenous forests with multilayered communi-
ties remains compared to the original potential of the evergreen broadleaf forest region. Even
if the amount was increased a hundred-fold, it would only comprise 6%.
It may be the case that certain situations require the isolated planting of coniferous trees
for economic purposes, or to plant fast-growing trees to accelerate the greening of an area. But
the fundamental principle behind creating forests with high disaster prevention and environ-
mental preservation capacities is to conduct mixed and dense planting of as many different
types of trees, in accordance with the potential natural vegetation of the area. The planting
should center on the primary trees of the location, and following the laws of the natural forest.
Fast-growing trees like the poplar and eucalyptus grow extremely rapidly in the early
stages, leading many to think that they have a high capability for absorbing and solidifying car-
bon. But the effect is not lasting. Seedlings of potential natural vegetation indigenous to the
area, with well-developed roots, planted densely and with different species mixed together,
will not require maintenance after three years. They may bloom slightly later, but they will
unfailingly grow through a process of competition, and will continue to live for hundreds of
years. If plants cost money to maintain after five years, it is because they are secondary vege-
tation or substitute tree species; in other words, they are counterfeit.
Real forests consisting of potential natural vegetation are formed from tall trees, which
are the primary trees, and beneath them, semi-tall trees, short trees, and bottom weeds, with the
entire forest functioning as a whole system. They are resistant to natural disasters like
typhoons, earthquakes, and fires, and do not collapse easily. They also serve as levees against
tsunami, and can be a shelter or an escape route in case of an emergency. In addition to such
local functions, globally, they absorb carbon and can be expected to curb global warming by
solidifying the carbon and maintaining it within the forest for countless years.
Naturally, live trees die after several hundred years. But the semi-tall trees and short
trees underneath them have successor trees in waiting. When one tree dies, these successor
trees quickly dominate the space it left behind. As a result, forest systems sustain themselves
semi permanently.

Plant TreesFrom under Your Feet to the World

Creating indigenous forests is possible around the world. On continents with vast amounts of
land, forests should be created on the largest possible scale. Places where even if desertifica-
tion has progressed, plant trees. Approximately two-thirds of the deserts and semi-deserts on
Earth today are man-made. In other words, these are regions where forests have been devas-
tated, annihilated, and turned into semi-deserts as a result of human activity over the long
term. It follows that pursuing an ecological responsealthough challengingwill enable
forests to recover, and that is what must be done. In addition, in places like Japan where land-

255
mass is limited and the population is concentrated, forests should be created not only in moun-
tain areas but also in the metropolitan areas as urban forests. They should also be planted in res-
idential areas.
In the Japanese written language, the pictograph for forest is symbolized by three
trees, while the pictograph for dense forest is represented by five trees. As this implies, the
first step is to plant a tree. If a problem arises, then a solution should be considered. Debates
and conferences are also necessary, but actions should first be implemented. Even if it is a
small number, plant indigenous foreststhose that absorb and solidify carbon; have the capa-
bilities to prevent disasters and preserve the environment; enhance the knowledge and aware-
ness of all citizens; and function as reservoirs of potential energy for new activity. It is essen-
tial to implement measures to counter the source of environmental contamination on the one
hand, and, at the same time, aggressively plant trees to create a green environment brimming
with life.
Recently, there has been a trend toward planting trees as a societal contribution, perhaps
as a result of society gaining some breathing room. They say it is to bring back the insects and
the wild birds, and to restore our natural habitat. There is no question that this is important. But
regardless of the scientific and technological advancements that we achieve, I would like for
people to recognize the cold, harsh reality that we only sustain our lives by being parasites to
green plants. Restoring and regenerating real forests, the native forests by native trees with the
greatest concentration of greeneryour hostsis of utmost importance. Recreating forests is
not merely for wild birds, or for other people. It is for you yourself to survive into the future in
good health, and to ensure the future of the blue planet that is rich in biodiversity, where all
types of life forms can coexist.
Real forests created based on the research of potential natural vegetation should, as a
forest system, last more than 10,000 years even if individual trees replace one another. They
should continue to exist provided there are no catastrophic circumstances or human-inflicted
destruction. The next ice age is predicted to arrive in 10,000 years. Let each one of us take an
active step to plant trees to create this forest of life, starting with the ground we stand onfor
ourselves, for our loved ones, for our many neighbors, and to protect this beautiful blue planet.
In the last 60 years, I have conducted field surveys in 38 countries around the world, and
planted 30 million trees in the last 30 or so years. The main participants of forest creation are
citizens. It is the local citizens of all ages who plant trees, with sweat on their brow and hands
in the earth. The trees are planted densely with different species mixed together. The citizens
efforts are overseen by governments, corporations, and all types of organizations, and are
based on the results of local field surveys of vegetation science, in accordance with the laws of
the natural forest. It is not necessary to plant large trees but to plant potted seedlings with well-
developed roots of many different species of trees. Focus the planting on primary trees indige-
nous to the location; they will have the strength to grow into large trees. Anybody who is seri-
ous about this endeavor can start anywhere, at any time.
I am only 78 years old. From a biological standpoint, humankind should live for around
110 years. My dream, as the first Japanese recipient of the Blue Planet Prize, an award
acclaimed highly both domestically and abroad, is to continue planting trees for another 30

256
years. I would like nothing more than to create the forest of life, the foundation for the survival
for all of Earths life forms and the key to human development, with the citizens of Japan, the
rest of Asia, and the entire world. I would like to make this dream come true. Let us plant trees
togetherfrom under our feet, and into the world.

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Lecture

Aiming for the Restoration of a Green Global Environment

Restoration of the Green Environment on the Basis of Field Studies and Research into the Ecology of Vegetation
Dr. Akira Miyawaki

Introduction
I am deeply honored to receive the Asahi Glass Foundations 15th international global envi-
ronmental award, the Blue Planet Prize. In accepting this honor, I would like to express both
my debt and my heartfelt thanks to all the people who have given their support, cooperation,
guidance, and assistance, both in and away from the spotlight, for the humble research and
environmental restoration activities with which I have had the good fortune to be involved.

Protecting the Environment Means Protecting Life

Science and technology have made astonishing advances, and we are now enjoying lifestyles
somewhat rich in material in the midst of an artificial environment that our ancestors could
never have imagined. The necessities for life and our other desires can mostly be fulfilled in
an instant, and in the virtual world of information technology in particular we can gain access
to information around the world with just a finger. Yet why is it that while we are blessed with
such an environment, there exists a great many people who feel a vague unease about the
future? Perhaps it may come from some basic, animal instinct within us human beings who
have been made to dwell in an unliving, uniform urban environment from which the greenery
and the indigenous forests that once covered the land have almost all been lost.
If we are to live in good health into the future, we must protect the environment, which
is the very basis of living and health. Environmental problems are the most pressing issues fac-
ing us, which everyone from elementary schoolchildren to politicians in the world must
address. However, the area covered by the environment is extremely wide, comprising both
hands-on and more intangible aspects. Hands-on measures taken in such areas as energy con-
servation, waste disposal, or pollution source control are all important, but it is not sufficient
just to take partial measures that only focus on one side of the issue; the fact is that at best such
measures merely prevent the environment from deteriorating further than it already has. Rather
than just thinking in terms of returning the environment that has been lost to its original state,
for the sake of the future we need to proactively regenerate and create a rich environment for
survival. Protecting the environment means protecting life from an ecological standpoint. Our
DNA and our genes stretch back for over three billion years in an unbroken chain; biologically
speaking, whole purpose of our short lifespan in this modern day, which measures less than
one hundred years, is to continue this chain of genes into the future.

The Role of Forests in Protecting Life

There are many types of greenery. Whether it be man-made, monoculture forests of conifers

258
grown for lumber, undeveloped woodland surrounding rural settlements, or the purely cos-
metic greenery grown to make our cities more pleasant, all greenery is important. Living
greenery is the only producer in the ecosystem. We human beings are consumers within the
social order of living things, and we only live by being merely parasites on green plants. Green
plants are thus our hosts. Among the different types of greenery, real forests made up of trees
native to the area are three-dimensional, multi-layered communities with 30 times the surface
area of greenery of single-layered lawns, and have more than 30 times the ability to protect
against natural disasters and to conserve the environment. These forests are completely
unyielding to natural disasters such as fires, earthquakes, typhoons, or tsunamis. So the green-
ery that is most important to us now is the greenery of native forests made up of trees native to
the area, as symbolized by the groves of village shrines. Native forests protect life and protect
the environment.
I have been working on creating forests of indigenous trees in their native habitat for
over 30 years, together with people of foresight from the government, private companies and
the general public. Rather than simply restoring forests that were there before, this work
involves creating genuine native forests through rigorous field surveys and research into the
ecology of the vegetation in order to ensure a future without the mistakes that have been made
so far. Forests that have been regenerated on the basis of potential natural vegetation cost noth-
ing to maintain, are long lasting, and carry out a diverse range of functions. Native forests pro-
tect the lives of all the people born and raised in the area, and the people who go to school or
work there. They sharpen the senses for the creation of culture; they give rise to intellect for
new developments. I became wholly engrossed in regenerating this three-dimensional green
environment almost without realizing it. The conviction and the activities with which I devote
myself to creating forests for life are not something that came about overnight; I hope you will
look at them as the way I have lived for 78 years.

Specialty in the Ecology of Weeds

I was born the fourth son of a farming family in a mountainous area some 400 meters above
sea level in Kibi Kogen, Okayama Prefecture. I grew up watching the people around me carry
out the hard task of clearing weeds and undergrowth by hand, and in my young mind I won-
dered if there could be a way to make life a bit easier for farmers by keeping the weeds at bay
without resorting to herbicides. I left elementary school at the end of the 1930s, in the midst
of a disastrous war. My brothers went off to war, and my father decided that I, the youngest of
the four, should take over the familys farm. However, perhaps because he thought I wouldnt
be up to straightforward agricultural work as I was a rather weak and lazy fellow, he sent me
to Niimi High School of Agriculture and Forestry, one of three agriculture high schools in
Okayama Prefecture at the time.
Academic study became more interesting for me when I entered agricultural high
school, and as I felt I wanted to continue my studies a little further, I took the examination to
enter Tokyo College of Agriculture and Forestry, which is now Tokyo University of
Agriculture and Technology, in Fuchu City. The examination was in February 1945, the final
year of the war. I couldnt make it to the examination hall because of the fierce air raids on

259
Tokyo, but I was given another chance to sit the examination a month later. The Tokaido Line
had sustained damage in the bombing and was out of use, so I had to make my way along the
coastline of the Japan Sea. It took me three days and three nights to reach my brothers house
in Saitama. My brother had avoided being conscripted due to his weak constitution and was
aiming to become a writer of stories for children. The night I arrived, the sky to the south was
bright red. It was March 9, the night of the firebombing of Tokyo. The following day I walked
to Fuchu, and after all I had been through I was finally able to sit the examination. I entered
Tokyo College of Agriculture and Forestry on the biology course, which had been specially set
up because there were not enough biology teachers in the junior high schools, girls high
schools and normal schools at the time.
At that time I didnt have any special liking for green plants; in fact, I was rather indif-
ferent to them. Right by my parents house there were plantations of cedar and cypress trees,
as well as groves of undeveloped woodlandcalled satoyama in Japanesewith deciduous
trees such as sawtooth oak, konara oak and Japanese snowbell. There were also meadows of
cut grass, rice paddies and crop fields. All around was a mass of greenery, yet I longed for the
big cities standing shrouded in black smoke that I had seen in my text books in elementary and
junior school. As a youth, my dream was to live somewhere where I could hear the deafening
roar of airplanes every day.
When I actually moved to Tokyo, the year the war ended, there was a grave shortage of
food and I felt the pangs of hunger in my belly. Nonetheless, I threw myself into my studies
with Ichiro Oga and my fellow students. Going out to Mt. Takao to carry out surveys and
looking at the grass and trees of the fields, I was amazed by the variety of plant species which
I had never even noticed before. When I went back home to Okayama for the summer vaca-
tion, I was surprised again to discover that the wild plants growing in the fields were more or
less the same as I had seen in Tokyo.
After graduating I worked for a year as a teacher of biology and English at Niimi
Agricultural High School in Okayama, but I very much wanted to study some more. However,
I did not want to return to the hunger of Tokyo, and instead I went to Hiroshima University of
Literature and Science (now Hiroshima University), which was then the nearest national uni-
versity to Okayama. It was normal for students from agricultural school to go into the biology
department, and I opted to specialize in plants, as I couldnt stand the sight of blood. It was four
years since the atom bomb had devastated Hiroshima; the ceiling of the science department
building, which had escaped being burned down, was pitch black and the electric lines still
hung down. There were just nine other students beside me, and we studied as hard as we could,
at night cooking rice in a camping pot together. I enjoyed it immensely.
I was fortunate to be taught by Dr. Yoshio Horikawa, who took a fieldwork-oriented
approach and had walked throughout Japan studying plant distribution. When I was asked
what I wanted to study for my graduation thesis, I replied straight away that I wanted to study
weed ecology. I had grown up watching farmers struggle with weeds, and so one way or
another I wanted to become an expert on them. Dr. Horikawa looked me steadily in the eye.
Weeds are on the border of science and agriculturethere is almost no one working in that
area, he said. If you study weeds, Miyawaki, your work will probably never see the light of

260
day and no one will have anything to do with you. But if you are determined to risk everything
on this, then you should certainly go ahead and do it. I am an extremely earthy individual, and
I have spent nearly 60 years since then single-mindedly tramping the field.
Weeds grow quickly, and so surveys of weeds need to be carried out in each of the four
seasons. Four times a year I would spend 60 daysa total of 240 dayssurveying groups of
weeds from Kagoshima in the south to Otoineppu on the island of Hokkaido in the north,
sleeping on night trains as I traveled the country. Otoineppu was then the most northerly region
of Japan where rice was cultivated. When I graduated from Hiroshima University of Literature
and Science, plant physiologist Prof. Yasona Fukuda told me that I needed to study some more
and he took me to Tokyo. There I entered the morphology laboratory of Prof. Ken Ogura, part
of the graduate school of the old University of Tokyo. I was never very keen on using a micro-
scope, but when I was given a task I put everything into coming to grips with it. I entered the
University of Tokyo laboratory in April, and in May I was appointed to the position of assis-
tant at Yokohama National University. For the next six years I spent three days a week at the
morphology laboratory of the University of Tokyo, and the other three days teaching at
Yokohama National University as an assistant under Prof. Masao Kitagawa, devoting myself
to research into weeds. I also wrote two theses in English and one in German, which brought
together the research I carried out under Prof. Ogura into morphological and ecological vari-
ations in the roots of weeds in relation to differences in the amount of moisture.
Just as Prof. Horikawa had predicted, Japanese scholars did not want anything to do
with me. However, one day an airmail letter arrived. Apparently, my work had caught the eye
of Prof. Dr. Drs. mult. Reinhold Txen, who was then director of the Federal Institute for
Vegetation Mapping in Germany. Weeds are at the point where human activity meets natural
vegetation, and are extremely important, he wrote. I am also working in this area; by all
means come and join me. This was in the days when an air ticket to Germany cost 450,000
yen. The salary for an assistant at Yokohama National University was then 9,000 yen a month,
while a professor made 20,000 yen a month; going to Germany seemed almost impossible. I
was fortunate, though, to receive assistance from the German government and the Humboldt
Foundation, and it was arranged for me to study in Germany for nearly two years from the end
of September 1958. Professor Txen turned out to be the most important teacher I have had.

Vegetation Science and Phytosociology Learned in the Field

I was to study at a vegetation-mapping laboratory in Stolzenau, a small town in Germany
where the laboratory was evacuated with a population of 5,000 people. I remember that in late
September the bitter winter winds were already blowing in northwest Germany, and it was
unpleasantly cold. Right from the day after I arrived, I was taken out every day to carry out
field surveys, and I spent the nights drawing up a comparative study of the data the laboratory
had on weeds from around the world and the data I had collected in Japan.
I began to wonder if it was really worth spending every day out in the harsh conditions
of freezing wind mixed with drizzle just making field surveys of plants and soil profiles, and
so after about a month I rather timidly asked Professor Txen if I could perhaps do some
slightly more scientific research. Professor Txen was a grave, imposing figure, like the last of

261
the great Teutonic warriors. He fixed me with a steely blue eye; What is scientific? he asked.
I answered, I want to listen to some professors lectures in Berlin Technical University and
want to read books in Bonn University Then he said Its too early for you to listen to people
talking or to read books. Get out there into the fieldthere are three billion years of the his-
tory of life out there, there is a real life drama unfolding under our great sun that the German
government could never achieve, no matter how many million marks they threw into research.
Your own body should be the instrument to measure itstudy it by looking at it with your
eyes, touching it with your hands, smell it, taste it, feel it! He drove into me the art of thor-
oughly scrutinizing plants in the field. Together with Professor Txen and the other researchers
working there, I carried out exhaustive field studies of every group of plantsfrom the weeds
growing in fields and grasslands to secondary forest, the heaths (heide in German) formed as
a result of degradation of the vegetation through long years of human activity, and the home-
stead woodland and forests of native trees. Fieldwork was the most important thingalways,
it was fieldwork.
Around the time I published my first thesis on plant communities, Professor Txen said
to me, Weeds are important, but they are just like my beardthey grow because you cut them.
The important thing is the concept of potential natural vegetation, in other words what sort
of vegetation a given area has the ability to support. Professor Txen had published his idea
of potential natural vegetation, the unadorned, indigenous vegetation of an area, in 1956, and
it was thoroughly instilled into me out in the field. In both Europe and Japan, most of the veg-
etation has changed under the influence of various different human activities, and most of the
real forests made up of native vegetation have been lost. Distinguishing the potential natural
vegetation of an area is just like trying to see a body through the clothes it is wearingyou
cant really make it out. It is so difficult that I first thought you needed some special, ninja-type
skills.
One day, when it was getting near the time to return to Japan, I woke up in the middle
of the night and for some reason the image of a festival I attended as a child entered my head.
It was the festival of Onzaki Shrine in my hometown, which was held at the beginning of
every November and at the time was the sole amusement in my remote village. The traditional
Bitchu kagura music and dancing, which started from midnight, was performed at the shrine
all through the night. I remembered walking out into the small precinct yard at half past four
in the morning when the music and dancing ended and seeing the branches of the trees stretch-
ing upwards, jet black against the dawn sky. I had trembled with emotion when I saw those
trees all those years ago, and in a flash it struck mesurely they were the primary trees for
potential natural vegetation!

My Interest Moves from Weeds to Trees

As soon as I returned to Japan, I visited Onzaki Shrine. The surroundings of the shrine were
occupied by secondary forests of broad-leaved trees and plantations of cedar and cypress, but
on either side of the steps to the shrine were huge specimens of Quercus acuta and Q. salicina
(see photo). These trees were the primary trees for the potential natural vegetation of areas of
the Chugoku region at an altitude of around 400 meters. Whereas I had only been interested in

262
weeds up until then, after returning to Japan I car-
ried out exhaustive surveys of all types of vegeta-
tion. My surveys covered everything from the
plants growing in cities and industrial areas, sec-
ondary forests such as the mixed woodland
around rural settlements, and plantations of cedar,
to the groves remaining in village shrines up and
down the country. My first thesis in which I freed
myself from weeds was a research investigation
into the evergreen forest that remains on the
island of Amami Oshima.
Big trees of Quercus acuta and Q. salicina at
Around that time in Germany, vegetation Onzaki Shrine
maps, and in particular, potential natural vegeta-
tion maps, were being used for urban planning, regional planning, planning of industrial areas,
and even national land conservation. In Japan, however, there was no one who would recog-
nize the value of using vegetation mapping, and there were no requests at all for vegetation sur-
veys. During the roughly 10 years following my return to Japan at the end of 1960, I devoted
myself to just going around Japan, carrying out field surveys of vegetation. It was around this
time that young people from around the country who were interested in studying under me
gathered at Yokohama National Universitys education department, which at the time did not
have the right of awarding degrees. No one who came was turned away, and no one who left
was chased after; we were simply absorbed in our work. During the day we went out into the
field, surveying every different type of plant community in places ranging from forests to
grasslands, even the communities of weeds growing in cities, and at night we compiled and
collated our data. This decade was perhaps the most fulfilling period of my life, and I think it
was decisive in shaping my later fieldwork-oriented stance on research. We accumulated a
mass of data on the vegetation around Japan, which came from the results of surveys carried
out by crawling around on the ground, and these data were so important they were practically
a census of the nations greenery.
Fortunately, we started to receive requests from different companies for cooperation
over research surveys in the 1970s. Researchers are egoistic peopleI politely refused any
requests or any assistance that did not benefit my own research. My method was to survey all
the vegetation on-site. In other words, using the vegetation science methods that were widely
used internationally, I would judge the degree of cover and the degree of community forma-
tion of each plant present there, and draw up a census of the greenery. From regional data I
made comparisons on a global scale and compiled plant community units and clusters made
up of combinations of species; these are termed associations. By further comparing similar
communities to each other, I compiled them into alliances, orders, and classes. My aim was
always to make a phytosociological organization of plant communities like this. Furthermore,
whenever I received an external request to cooperate over a survey, I would without fail append
a text in an European language to the survey or research reportwe were studying the world,
for the world. I asked them to print over 500 additional reprints, and, gladly or grudgingly, they

263
cooperated. As far as I was concerned, a vegetation survey did not end with simply putting out
the report; it didnt become a real research survey until it had been subjected to the unforgiving,
critical eyes of a great many specialists at international academic gatherings. And if the results
were not the scientific research results of real vegetation surveys, they would be of no use in cre-
ating real forests for protection against natural disasters and environmental conservation.

The Completion of Vegetation of Japan

So we were completely engrossed in carrying out vegetation surveys up and down the coun-
try with the cooperation of companies, municipal governments, central government ministries,
and other organizations that all had the necessary foresight. We drew the actual distribution of
vegetation communities into diagnostic maps of the current status of greenery, and existing
vegetation maps that could be of use to related sciences. The existing vegetation is completely
different from the original vegetation, which has been changed by human intervention, and so
at the same time I also gained a grasp of the sort of natural vegetation that the sum total of the
natural environment could support if all human influence were stopped. This is not necessar-
ily the same as the original vegetation; it is todays potential natural vegetation, and we mapped
its spread in the form of potential natural vegetation maps. While comparing existing vegeta-
tion maps with potential natural vegetation maps, I made a diagnosis of the natural environ-
ment of the area, and made full use of
this as a scientific scenario for using
potential natural vegetation in the cre-
ation of forests where the original
forests of the area had been lost. I did
not limit the work of drawing up these
vegetation data, greenery censuses and
vegetation maps just to any given
regionmy real desire was to draw
them up on a nationwide scale that
would cover every region of Japan.
Existing vegetation of Japan I was fortunate enough to receive
promotional expenses for publicizing
the findings of my research from the
then Ministry of Education, and I was
able to compile and publish them as 10
volumes of Vegetation of Japan, (Vol. 1,
Yakushima; Vol. 2, Kyushu; Vol. 3,
Shikoku; Vol. 4, Chugoku; Vol. 5,
Kinki; Vol. 6, Chubu; Vol. 7, Kanto; Vol.
8, Tohoku; Vol. 9, Hokkaido; Vol. 10,
Ogasawara, Okinawa). I sweated blood
over this huge task. Vegetation of Japan
Potential natural vegetation of Japan
was published at the rate of one volume

264
a year starting in 1980. My approach was
to compile and collate the vegetation sur-
vey data and vegetation maps from the
areas of Japan that had been surveyed so
far, while at the same time carrying out a
thorough field survey of the vegetation of
the area to be published the following year.
My aim was for a near-perfect collection
of vegetation survey data; during the day I
worked hard at the fieldwork and at night I
sorted through the data. I put a great deal
of effort into determining individual plant
community units, and organizing and sys- Completed 10 volume Vegetation of Japan
temizing plant communities that could be
compared on a global scale. While I was working on compiling Vol. 1, Yakushima, I was con-
currently working on the vegetations surveys for Vol. 2, Kyushu, which was to be published
the following year; while I compiled the Kyushu data, I was also carrying out surveys in
Shikoku. Working in this way, I completed 10 volumes of Vegetation of Japan over the course
of 10 years. The compositional charts of plant communities that are a census of the nations
greenery, the existing vegetation maps that serve as diagnostic maps for the present status of
greenery, and the potential natural vegetation maps that serve as a scientific scenario for the
regeneration of a new green environment were printed in 12 colors, and an index was
appended. The text ran to 6,000 pages, and the whole thing weighed 36 kilograms.
Working under such relentless conditions, I would never have completed the Vegetation
of Japan if it were not for the 116 people from universities and research organizations around
the country who so generously cooperated on the project. At the very core, though, it was just
five or six researchers from the vegetation laboratory of Yokohama National University who
carried out the work of determining the plant community units, organizing them on a global
scale, and producing vegetation maps. Just as we were approaching the third volume, Assistant
Professor Shigetoshi Okuda said to me on behalf of the research team that they wanted me to
take a break for a year. If they carried on like that they were all going to die, he said, and did I
really want to kill them? It was just at the time that an Southeast Asian plant community sur-
vey project was being carried out with overseas survey funds from the then Ministry of
Education. I had set my heart on this project, which involved spending three months of the
year, from November to January, carrying out overseas surveys in parallel in Borneo, Thailand,
Malaysia, and Indonesia. I thought long and hard about it, but I realized that if I broke off the
Japanese vegetation project for a year, despite all the effort that had gone into getting it started
it would probably just end there. So I told them that I was going to give everything I had, and
I wanted them to do the same. We came to a mutual understanding, and in that way we brought
all 10 volume of the Vegetation of Japan to completion. I really am enormously grateful to all
the members of the research laboratories from that time, to all the researchers around Japan
who supported them, and to my senior researchers for their cooperation and for the results of

265
their splendid efforts.
The distinctive feature of Vegetation of Japan is that not only does it contain the results
of vegetation surveys and vegetation maps compiled from a global perspective, it also has a
large section on the vegetation ecology approach to the conservation and regeneration of the
green environment at the end of each volume. These sections contain specific proposals com-
piled by region for the preservation of natural vegetation that is close to the original vegetation
of the region, and for the creation of disaster prevention and nature conservation forests native
to the area, forests that nurture river sources, urban forests, forests in industrial areas, and
forests to protect the environment of roads and traffic facilities. From the tall trees that will
form the main species of future forests, to the semi-tall trees, the bushes and flowering shrubs,
and the species that make up the mantle communities at the forest edge, every tree species is
listed by its potential natural vegetation regions. I believe Vegetation of Japan is now being
used as the fundamental ecological work for conservation and regeneration of the green envi-
ronment. Additionally, as Japan stretches for 3,000 kilometers across the central region of the
Northern Hemisphere, the completion of the 10 volumes of Vegetation of Japan has received
acclaim overseas. All the data is also appended in European languages, so Vegetation of Japan
should have a place as a basic text in many universities and libraries across America and
Europe.

Research into Non-flowering Vegetation Begins to Attract Attention: Creating Forests

Based on Potential Natural Vegetation
From around the end of the 1960s onward that there
was a rapid growth in industry, and there was
exploitation of nature on a massive scale.
Atmospheric and water pollution became more and
more serious, and such hazards came to be
addressed as grave social problems. There was an
unexpected backlash of public opinion, and civil
campaigns opposed to pollution and the destruction
Planted area in front of the main gate of
of nature spread from the regions. The small labora-
Yokohama National University tory where we weed people worked, which had pre-
viously had no connection to society, suddenly had
visitors coming one after another. I thought their
only real interest in coming was probably just to ask
us to plant some greenery to atone for the pollution
they had caused. I always answered that I would not
help by planting greenery just as a temporary cover-
up. I would, though, be very happy to cooperate in
creating a real, native forest based on the potential
natural vegetation of the area. Most of the people
who came to the laboratory said no way, thats just
The main gate of Yokohama National pure cheek, and went home in a huff. But there were
University (five years after planting)

266
 some people who thought that this Miyawaki
persons ideas might just have something to
them, and so to find out more they asked me to
give lectures at their company headquarters or
came back with their company executives in tow
to hear again what I had to say. These people
seriously looked into creating forests.
The first forest I created was at the request
of Nippon Steel Corporation. In 1971, there was
Potted seedlings with well-established root a telephone call to the laboratory at seven
systems (Machilus) oclock one morning from Ken Shikimura, head
of the newly-formed environmental division of
Nippon Steel Corporation. He had attended one
of my lectures at the Japan Association of
Corporate Executives in Tokyo, and he wanted
my cooperation in creating a forest. This was a
period when the big companies were considered
the main culprits for the pollution and
Yokohama National University was seen as a
hotbed of left-wing activity. It was unthinkable
Planted area in a shopping center for a major company and a university to put
together a joint project, but I told him, rather
audaciously, The lives of the trees I plant are at stake. If you are prepared to put your job on
the line as well, I will help you. These were the words of a greenhorn assistant professor at a
new university, but Mr. Shikimura replied, Of course Ill do it for real. And so began the cre-
ation of a forest at the Oita Steelworks, which was then still under construction.
When I visited the site, I found it was reclaimed land with seawater rising up. The pre-
fectural and municipal authorities had planted various trees, but only the stakes to support them
remained. I carried out a vegetation survey of the surrounding area, and found the primary trees
for potential natural vegetation such as Machilus tunbergii, Castanopsis cuspidate, blue
Japanese oak, and Quercus myrsinaefolia, growing at nearby Usa Shrine to heights of over 20
meters and with trunk diameters at breast height of over 80 centimeters. I proposed that the
seeds of these treestheir acornsbe gathered and used for planting.
Japan has heavy rainfall, and if the soil is too wet it is difficult for deep-rooted trees or
trees with axial roots to grow. I realized that for the trees to grow well, it would be best to cre-
ate a mound to improve the drainage and plant the trees on top of the mound. I had all the waste
left lying around the vast site, such as waste wood and anything else that was neither poisonous
nor difficult to break down, used as a natural resource; it was mixed into soil, and I had this built
up into a rounded mound between 30 and 50 meters in width, 10 meters at the narrowest, and
about five meters high.
Conifers such as cedar, Japanese cypress, or pine have shallow roots, and if planted as
bare seedlings they soon take. However, the trees I wanted to plant were species with deep

267
 roots or axial root systems, which are difficult to
transplantso difficult that gardeners tend to dis-
like them. I couldnt create a real forest without full
use of these species, and through trial and error I
found that planting potted trees worked well. I
planted acorns in pots, and after a year and a half or
two years there would be 30-centimeter seedlings
Trees planted on the premises of Tokyo
with well-established root systems. I planted these
Electric Power's Higashi Ohgishima on the mound, where the topsoil had been restored,
thermal power station immediately after together with all the other people working on the
planting
project.
The style of planting whereby trees that
have already grown big are planted here and there
on a lawn, supported by stakes, is used for creating
the scenery of parks or gardens and it means creat-
ing what is basically a heath-like, wilderness land-
scape. For a natural plant community (society), the
best situation is where the plants compete with
each other and have to put up with each other. Our
Nature conservation forest grown on the method of planting trees followed the law of the
premises of Tokyo Electric Power's
Higashi Ohgishima thermal power station
forest, and seedlings whose roots had filled the pot
were planted densely, different species mixed
together. In a natural forest, between 30 and 50 seedlings sprout per square meter. There are
some places in Borneo where there are between 500 and nearly 1,000 seedlings per square
meter. We densely planted different species together in the proportion of about three seedlings
per square meter.
In a natural forest, seedlings emerge from a covering of fallen leaves, and when creating
the forest we spread a thick layer of rice straw on the ground. Three or four kilos of straw per
square meter is about right, and we spread it as gently as if we were putting a blanket over a
sleeping baby. The straw gradually forms a mulch, which is extremely important; even if there
is no rain the seedlings do not have to be watered for 40 days or so, and even if there is a sud-
den, 150-millimeter deluge one night the soil will not be washed away. The mulch also serves
to protect against cold, and makes it difficult for weeds to grow. As the straw rots, it fertilizes
the soil.
These days I am rather more timid, but then it was a case of fools rush in where angels
fear to tread; I brazenly announced to the Nippon Steel Corporation, said to be the worlds
number one company, The primary trees for potential natural vegetation like these species of
chinquapin, Machilus, and oak have grown together with the residents of this region over hun-
dreds of years. I want a guarantee that if the trees of these species that we planted at the steel-
works all suddenly die off one day, you will turn off your blast furnaces. Nippon Steel
Corporation asked for three days to think about it. Mr. Shikimura and Hideaki Nakagawa, the
manager of the Administrative Department, got back to me: OK. We will do everything we

268
Comparison of classical and new succession Location of disaster-prevention and nature
theories conservation forests created in Japan (1,400 as
of September 30, 2006)

can for pollution source control, they said. After that, I worked on the creation of forests not
just in Oita but also for all of Nippon Steels other steelworks in Nagoya, Sakai, Kamaishi,
Futtu, Hikari, Muroran, and Yawata.
When the then Ministry of Trade and Industry established the Factory Location Law,
which stipulated that 20% of the area of the land on which a new factory was built must be cov-
ered with vegetation, many young officials came to us and I gave various different proposals.
However, because the law made no reference to the type of trees to be planted, in the end there
were many cases in which the greening just took the form of a few fully-grown, non-native
trees with insufficient roots planted here and there on a lawn. As a consequence, greening
around factories had a bad reputation for costing too much in maintenance fees. However, our
way of creating forests using seedlings of trees indigenous to the area with well-developed
roots, planted densely and with different species mixed together, gradually became better
understood. Electricity companies such as Tokyo Electric Power, Kansai Electric Power,
Kyushu Electric Power, and Okinawa Electric Power, and companies such as Toray, Honda
Motors, and Mitsui Fudosanthinking about it now, these were international corporations
all put our ideas for forest creation into practice. Of course, there were a great many small and
medium-sized companies, as well as local authorities with foresight, who also started to work
to create real forests in different regions. In this way, disaster-prevention and nature conserva-
tion forests of trees indigenous to the area took shape around the country.
In the retail industry, Takuya Okada, honorary president of Jusco, part of the Aeon
Group, gave his understanding and consent and from 1990 it was decided that all new premises
were to carry out forest creation work. Under this plan, the space around new premises, even
if only one meter in width, is covered in a three-dimensional forest, centered around the pri-
mary trees for potential natural vegetation. Trees with seasonal flowers are good as a sort of
cosmetic touch for the marginal trees facing a road, a bit like the patterned hem of a kimono.
Along the coastline trees that are resistant to salt water, such as Japanese pittosporum, Indian
hawthorn, and Eurya emarginata, are planted; inland, it is trees that flower in winter such as
snow camellia and sasanqua camellia, or spring-flowering trees such as gardenia or daphne.

269
 Satsuki azalea or azalea are planted on south-
facing slopes. The trees are mixed together
and densely planted, in line with the laws of a
natural forest, and mantle communities form.
People going to do their shopping always pass
through a park with flowers, and dead leaves
do not fall outside the group of treesthey
decompose with time, and help in the repro-
duction of the forest. As of August 2006, the
Aeon Group has created forest like this at 550
sites, which include places in Malaysia,
Thailand, Hong Kong, and China. Over six
million seedlings have been planted by local
citizens. Magnificent forests have developed
where the primary trees for potential natural
Comparison of CO 2 absorption and fixation vegetation were planted, and these are some
between subtropical rainforest in Malaysia and of the few places in the world where shopping
evergreen forest in Japan (from D2H)
centers surrounded by green forests can be
seen standing out in the midst of urban desert.

Regenerating Forests Overseas

(1) Southeast Asia
The established opinion up until the 1970s was that the worlds great tropical forests of
Southeast Asia, the South American Amazon, and Central Africa could not be regenerated
once they had been destroyed, and so they should be preserved without any logging. However,

Clockwise from top left; Seeds of lauan tree botanized in Malaysia, A seed bed in Brunei Forestry
Center (June 3, 1991), 2000 people planting 6,000 trees at eight hundred hectares of burnt fields on the
Bintulu campus of the Universiti Putra Malaysia in Bintulu, Sarawak State, Malaysia, (July 1991),
Planted area on the Bintulu campus of the Universiti Putra Malaysia (July 15, 1991), Planted area at
Universiti Putra Malaysia (August 20, 2006)

270
as I carried out field surveys in Southeast Asia, my assessment was that it was difficult but not
impossible to regenerate the ecosystems of the tropical forests, which are a treasure house of
every biotic resource. To do this, rather than planting non-native species such as Australian
eucalyptus or American pine, it is necessary to densely plant the area with a mix of the primary
tree species indigenous to the area. The primary trees could be ascertained by carrying out the
necessary field studies.
As luck would have it, Mitsubishi Corporation put forward a proposal and in 1990 I set
up the worlds first project aiming to regenerate native tropical rainforest. The site for the pro-
ject was an 800-hectare area of burnt fields on the Bintulu campus of the Universiti Putra
Malaysia (UPM) in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. I collected the seeds of indigenous tree
species, the primary tree communities for potential natural vegetation, and grew them in pots.
Some 2,000 people took part in the first tree-planting festival on July 15, 1991, including stu-
dents at the UPM and members of the local Iban tribe. We had to dig the holes for planting the
trees by hand, so that time we only managed to plant 6,000 trees, but those 30-centimeter
seedlings with their sturdy roots that filled the pots have now reached a height of nearly 20
meters and are growing unhindered into a forest that is close to the ecosystem of a natural rain-
forest (see photo).
Since then, tree-planting festivals have been held every year right up until the present,
and starting 13 years ago around 30 Japanese volunteers have taken part every year; together
with local people, they are working on creating forests.
This project to regenerate the rainforest was extremely well received in Malaysia
because it was carried out in the form of a joint research project with the UPM, which is the
countrys oldest university. On July 30, 2006, I was awarded an honorary doctorate in
forestryI was the first foreigner to receive such a degree, and I was deeply honored to receive
it from the Sultan in person at a magnificent degree ceremony to mark the universitys 75th
anniversary. I pledged once again my desire to work even more energetically for the regener-
ation of natural tropical rainforest in Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia together with
local people as well as volunteers from Japan and other countries.
I am now working on regenerating water conservation forest and dry tropical forest in
Thailand and Cambodia together with local people and volunteers from Japan by planting
seedlings mainly of the primary trees for potential natural vegetation.

(2) The Brazilian Amazon, Kenya in Africa, and China

After the tropical rainforest regeneration project in Borneo, we started a field survey of the veg-
etation in the Brazilian Amazon on the South American continent in December 1990, with the
aim of regenerating lowland tropical forest. We decided to hold the first tree-planting festival
ten days before the Earth Summit, which was held in Brazil in 1992. In Southeast Asia we had
carried out field surveys over a period of more than 10 years, but we only spent just over a year
on the field survey in the Brazilian Amazon. We determined that the primary trees for poten-
tial natural vegetation as virola and other trees in the outskirts of Belem, the capital of the State
of Para, but it was by no means certain that we had determined all the primary trees in the
indigenous forest. We therefore grew seedlings in pots of over 20 species of the tall trees found

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 The Miyawaki method for regenerating tropical forest

Pattern diagram of secondary succession at a burnt natural rainforest, Malaysia

272
in the area. We invited then Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Yasushi Murazumi
and his wife to the festival, and altogether 1,000 people, including students of University of
Agrarian Sciences of Par (Faculade de Ciencias Agrarias do Para) and local people, planted
a total of 10,000 seedlings.
Among the trees we planted, fast-growing species such as balsa at first grew at a
tremendous rate. After three years they were six meters high, after five years, 10 meters. From
the tenth year onward, however, these trees started to topple over and die, even though there
were no strong winds. On the other hand, trees such as the virola, which had been considered
one of the primary trees, grew steadily and are now forming a forest that closely resembles a
lowland tropical forest ecosystem. This project was carried out in the form of a joint research
project with University of Agrarian Sciences of Par (Faculade de Ciencias Agrarias do Para),
with the cooperation of the then Eidai Brazil and the Mitsubishi Corporation.
After successfully regenerating tropical forest in Malaysia and the Amazon, I am cur-
rently working on regenerating the tropical forest of Africa, the last of the worlds three great
tropical forests. I am carrying out the regeneration work in Kenya which lies along the equator.
I became involved in this area after Wangari Maathai, the Nobel prizewinner from Kenya who
has planted 30 million trees in Africa, asked for advice. She told me that foreign tree species
such as eucalyptus, which were planted during the colonial era, were destroying the hills. I
went to Kenya twice, in December 2005 and March 2006, to carry out field surveys of the veg-
etation. I plan to do all I can for the regeneration of the African tropical forests, and I will hold
tree-planting festivals in November of this year (2006) and March 2007, together with members
of Kenyas Green Belt Movement as well as companies and volunteers from Japan.
I have also been working to create forests in continental China, which is Japans neigh-

People planting trees in the Brazilian

Amazon(above and above right), Planted
area in the Brazilian Amazon(right)

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bor and also the womb that nurtured Japans vegetation. This work is based on the results of
surveys I carried out with grants for overseas surveys from the former Ministry of Education.
I met with Takuya Okada, honorary chairman of the Aeon Environment Foundation, and the
Beijing Municipal Peoples Government, and the decision was made to regenerate the indige-
nous forests along the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing over a three-year period starting
in 1998. At the time I was the first Asian to have been elected President of the International
Association for Ecology, and with the recommendation of both Japan and China I was
appointed to lead the project. From previous surveys I knew that the primary tree around the
Great Wall in the province of Yanqing was Quercus mongolica, and we proposed to the mayor
that we should create forests using mainly this species. However, the head of the citys Forestry
Division and others told us, Those sort of trees disappeared ages ago, we dont have them
now. The only ones we do have are poplar, false acacia, willow, and alder. Fast-growing trees
like that develop quickly but they do not last a long time. I insisted that if we were going to cre-
ate a forest it had to be a real forest with indigenous tree species that could withstand disasters
and would last a long time.
On three separate occasions between 1998 and 2000 we planted a total of 400,000
seedlings, mainly of the primary tree Quercus mongolica and also Chinese arborvitae, Chinese
pine, acer and other species, together with 3,200 Chinese people from Beijing and elsewhere,
as well as 3,980 volunteers from Japan. Because the trees were planted in very rocky areas with
harsh conditions their initial development was rather slow, but a field survey carried out in June
of this year (2006), the sixth year since the final planting, showed that with some exceptions
the Quercus mongolica and other trees have grown over three meters high. Their roots have

Planted area along the Great Wall of China Tree-planting festival in China

Tree planting in China Planted area in the Pudong district of Shanghai,

China

274
eaten their way firmly into the rock, binding the slopes like living rope. I was able to confirm
that a native forest based on potential natural vegetation is steadily being regenerated.
The same sort of forest creation is being carried out using species indigenous to the area
in the Pudong district of Shanghai, which is currently undergoing development, as well as
along the Qingdao Expressway, around the Maanshan Steelworks, and other areas. All of these
projects have been commissioned by local city authorities or companies, who plant the
seedlings together with local residents. Forests are also being created around the Aeon shop-
ping centers at Huhehaote in Inner Mongolia, Linxi, and Guangzhou.

Indigenous Forests and Biodiversity

Tree-planting festivals based on the concept of potential natural vegetation and on ecological field
surveys of vegetation have so far been held over 1,500 times in Japan and overseas. I have planted
trees with a huge number of people; together we have worked up a sweat on our brows and felt
the solid earth with our hands. I believe that there is so much more to planting a tree than just a
scientific investigation to take stock of the present conditionsit is the act of planting a tree in
the hearts of every individual. The forest is the root of all life; it is the womb that revives our bio-
logical instincts, that deepens our intelligence and increases our sensitivity as human beings.
Local forests that have been regenerated or created using trees indigenous to the area on
the basis of the concept of potential natural vegetation do not just carry out diverse functions of
disaster prevention and environmental protection; at the same time they have an ecological con-
nection to the conservation and maintenance of biodiversity. E.O. Wilson advocated the impor-
tance of biodiversity at the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, after which
the preservation of biodiversity became a worldwide environmental theme. There is now an
ever-growing body of thought that we should preserve native and endemic species, preserve all
their particular characteristics from their genes to their ecosystems, and ensure their continuity
in every region of the world.
We have successfully regenerated forests of multi-layered plant communities that are
extremely close to their natural state using the method of densely planting mixed species indige-
nous to the area. We have worked to regenerate and maintain the diverse forest ecosystems, from
the layers of tall trees and semi-tall trees to the short trees, the bottom weeds and even the bac-
teria in the soil. For us, the protection of biodiversity is a fundamental principle that guides our
actions. We started putting our method of forest creation into practice in the 1970s, which means
that we pre-empted Wilsons thinking on the preservation of biodiversity by nearly 20 years.
Protecting the environment of indigenous forests is protecting life, protecting genes, and
protecting the mind. At the same time, it makes a definite contribution to the regeneration and
maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity native to particular areas. Everyone has a leading
role to play in creating forests. Let us go out and create real forests based on potential natural
vegetationnot waiting for tomorrow, but starting now from where we are standing and spread-
ing outward to the whole world. I myself am resolved to continue to plant trees based on poten-
tial natural vegetation together with you all, starting from where I stand and spreading to the
whole world, so long as I have life left in my body. Receiving the Blue Planet Prize has made
this resolve stronger still.

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 Major Publications
Dr. Akira Miyawaki
Books
1. Miyawaki,A. (1970) Plants and Humans Balance of Biocoenosis 230pp.
NHK Books 109. Japan Broadcast Publishing, Tokyo. (Japanese).
2. Miyawaki,A. (1983) Testimony by Green Plants. 241pp. Tokyo-Shoseki, Tokyo. (Japanese).
3. Miyawaki,A.(1987) Forest is Life Ecology and the right to live . 268pp.
Yuhikaku, Tokyo. (Japanese).
4. Miyawaki,A.(1991) Prescription for Restoration of Green Environments. 289pp Asahi-Shinbun-sha, Tokyo.
(Japanese).
5. Miyawaki,A. et al.(1994) Vegetation in Eastern North America Vegetation System and Dynamics under
Human Activity in the Eastern North American Cultural Region in Comparison with Japan . 515pp. Univ.
of Tokyo Press, Tokyo.
6. Miyawaki,A.(1997) Green Environments and Vegetation Science Chinjuno-mori to the global forest.
244pp. NTT Publishing, Tokyo. (Japanese).
7. Miyawaki,A.(1999): Bring Forests to Life. 178pp. Dainippon-tosho, Tokyo. (Japanese).
8. Miyawaki,A.& Itabashi,K.(2000) Chinju-no-mori(Native forests of native trees)
159pp. Shincho-sha, Tokyo. (Japanese).
9. Miyawaki,A. et al.(2004) Planting Tomorrow. 287pp. Mainichi-Shinbun-sha, Tokyo. (Japanese).
10. Miyawaki,A.(2005) Forests of acorns save our lives. 192pp. Shuei-sha, Tokyo. (Japanese).
11. Miyawaki,A.(2005) A man who planted the most trees in Japan. Textbook for NHK TV Program. 161pp.
Japan Broadcast Publishing, Tokyo. (Japanese).
12. Miyawaki,A.(2006) 30,000,000 seedlings bear native forests. 205pp. Japan Broad-cast Publishing, Tokyo.
(Japanese).
13. Miyawaki,A.(2006) Plant Trees!. 220pp. Shincho-sha, Tokyo. (Japanese).
14. Miyawaki,A. & Box, E.O. (2006) The Healing Power of Forests. The Philosophy behind Restoring Earths
Balance with Native Trees. 286pp. Kosei Publishing Co., Tokyo.

Articles
1. Miyawaki,A. & Itow,S.(1966) Phytosociological Approach to the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources in Japan. Presented at Divisional Meeting of Conservation, the 11th Pacific Science Congress. 5pp.
Tokyo.
2. Miyawaki,A.(1975) Entwicklung der Umweltschutz-Pflanzungen und -Ansaaten.
In: Txen,R.(ed.) Sukzessionforschung. Berichte der Internationalen Symposien der Internationalen
Vereinigung fr Vegetationskunde 237-254.
Gramer, Vaduz.
3. Miyawaki,A.(1981a) Das System der Lorbeerwlder (Camellietea japonicae)
Japans. In: Dierschke,H.(ed.) Syntaxonomie. Berichte der Internationalen
Symposien der Internationalen Vereinigung fr Vegetationskunde 589-597.
Gramer, Vaduz.
4. Miyawaki,A.(1981b) Energy policy and green environment on the base of ecology. In: Fazzolage,R.A.&
Smith,C.B.(eds.) Beyond the energy crisis opportunity and challenge. 581-587. Oxford & New York.
5. Miyawaki,A.(1982a) Umweltschutz in Japan auf Vegetations-kologischer Grundlage. Bull. Inst. Environ.
Sci. Technl. Yokohama Natl. Univ. 8: 107-120. (German with Engl. synopsis).
6. Miyawaki,A.(1982b) Anthropogene Vernderungen der Struktur und Dynamik Immer- und Sommergrne
Laubwlder auf den Japanischen Inseln. In: Dierschke, H.(ed.) Struktur und Dynamik von Wldern. Ber. Intl.
Symp. der Internationalen Vereinigung fr Vegetationskunde 659-679. Gramer, Vaduz.
7. Miyawaki,A.(1982c) Phytosociological study of East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Bull. Inst. Environ. Sci. Technl. Yokohama Natl. Univ. 8: 219-232.(Germany with English synopsis).
8. Miyawaki,A.(1985) Vegetationskologische Betrachtung Mittel-Japans unter dem Aspekt der

276
 Geomorphologie. Colloques Phytosociologiques 8: 28-40. Bailleul.
9. Miyawaki,A.,Fujiwara,K. & Box,E.O.(1987) Toward harmonious green urban environments in Japan and
other countries. Bull. Inst. Environ. Sci.
Technl. Yokohama Natl. Univ. 14: 67-82. Yokohama.
10. Miyawaki,A.(1988) Die Vernderung innerhalb der japanischen anthropogenen Vegetation. Flora 180: 191-
201. Jena.
11. Miyawaki,A.(1990) A Vegetation-Ecological View of the Japanese Archipelago.
Ecology International. INTECOL Bull. 18: 13-28. Athens, GA.
12. Miyawaki,A.(1992a) Restoration of Evergreen Broad-leaved Forests in the Pacific Region. In: Wali,M.K.(ed.)
Ecosystem Rehabilitation. 2. Ecosystem analysis and synthesis 233-245. SPB Academic Publishing, The
Hague.
13. Miyawaki,A.(1992b) Ecological Studies on Human Activities and Vegetation Dynamics in the Eastern North
American Cultural Region in Comparison with Japan Archipelago. Gakujutsu-Geppo 45(5): 424-434.
(Japanese).
14. Miyawaki,A.(1993) Restoration of native forests from Japan to Malaysia.
In: Lieth,H. & Lohmann,M.(eds.) Restoration of Tropical Forest Ecosystems. 5-24. Kluwer Academic
Publishers, the Netherlands.
15. Miyawaki,A.,Fujiwara,K. & Ozawa,M.(1993) Native forest by native trees Restoration of indigenous for-
est ecosystem (Reconstruction of environmental protection forest by Prof.Miyawaki's Method) Bull. Inst.
Environ. Sci. Technl. Yokohama Natl. Univ. 19: 73-107. Yokohama. (English and Japanese).
16. Miyawaki,A. & Golley,F.B.(1993) Forest reconstruction as ecological engineering. Ecological Engineering 2:
333-345. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
17. Meguro, S. & Miyawaki,A.(1997) A study of initial growth behavior of planted Dipterocarpaceae trees for
restoration of tropical rain forests in Borneo/Malaysia. Tropical Ecology 38(2): 237-245.
18. Miyawaki,A.(1998) Restoration of urban green environments based on the theories of vegetation ecology.
Ecological Engineering 11: 157-165. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

19. Miyawaki,A.(1999) Creative Ecology: Restoration of native forests by native trees. Plant Biotechnology 16(1):
15-25.
20. Miyawaki,A.(1999) Potential Natural Vegetation and Reforestation. JCCA for Tomorrow 203: 30-33. Tokyo.
(Japanese).
21. Miyawaki,A.(2000) Recreation of Ecological Environment Protection Forests.
Forestry Economy 617: 9-19. Tokyo. (Japanese).
22. Miyawaki,A. & Meguro,S. (2000) Planting experiments for the restoration of tropical rainforest in Southeast
Asia and a comparison with laurel forest at Tokyo Bay. Proceedings of IAVS Symposium, 249-250. Opulus
Press, Uppsala, Sweden.
23. Miyawaki,A. & Abe,S. (2003) A Reforestation Project of Lowland Tropical Forests in Brazilian Amazon
Growth behavior in ten years. Proceedings of IAVS Symposium
24. Miyawaki,A. (2004) Restoration of living environment based on vegetation ecology: Theory and practice.
Ecological Research 19: 83-90. Blackwell Publishing Asia, Australia.
25. Miyawaki,A. & Abe,S. (2004) Public awareness generation for the reforestation in Amazon tropical lowland
region. Tropical Ecology 45(1): 59-65.

Editorial Work
1. Miyawaki,A. & Txen,R.(eds.1977) Vegetation Science and Environmental Protection. Proceedings of the
International Symposium in Tokyo on Protection of the Environment and Excursion on Vegetation Science
through Japan. 578pp. Maruzen Co., Tokyo.
2. Miyawaki,A.(ed.1980-1989) Vegetation of Japan. vol. 1-10.
1.Yakushima 376pp. 2.Kyushu 484pp. 3.Shikoku 604pp. 4.Chugoku 540pp.
5.Kinki 596pp. 6.Chubu 604pp. 7.Kanto 641pp. 8.Tohoku 563pp.
9.Hokkaido 563pp. 10.Okinawa and Ogasawara 676pp. each vol. with colored vegetation maps and tables.
(Japanese with German and/or English summary). Shibundo, Tokyo.

277
3. Miyawaki,A. et al.(eds.1983) Handbook of Japanese Vegetation. 872pp. (Japanese with Latin). with
Distribution Maps of Japanese Plant Communities 168pp. Shibundo, Tokyo.
4. Miyawaki,A.(ed.1985) Vegetation Ecological Studies on Mangrove Forests in Thailand. 152pp. Inst. Environ.
Sci. Technl. Yokohama Natl. Univ. Yokohama.5. Miyawaki,A., Bogenrider,A., Okuda,S. &
White,I.(eds.1987) Vegetation Ecology and Creation of New Environments. Proceedings of International
Symposium in Tokyo and Phytogeographical Excursion through Central Japan. 473pp. Tokai Univ. Press,
Tokyo.
6. Miyawaki,A.& Okuda,S. (eds.1991) Vegetation of Japan Illustrated. 800pp. Shibundo, Tokyo. (Japanese).
7. Miyawaki,A. (ed.1996) Indices to Vegetation of Japan. Community names and subjects . 330pp.
Shibundo, Tokyo. (Japanese with German and Latin).

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